Athlete Journal: Jess Papi, Entry 10 - 12/7/2013

EDITOR'S NOTE: Welcome to the athlete journal of Jess Papi. Jess is a blue belt at Scranton MMA and also pursuing her degree in exercise science. Read her entries every week for insights on competing, training, and juggling BJJ and life.

The day I’ve been waiting so long for has finally come - the schedule change! You might remember me complaining about the previous schedule a couple weeks ago. It just didn’t work for any of us after we lost one of our instructors. We definitely have the space to run multiple classes at one time, but we didn’t have enough instructors to make that happen while still getting our own training in. The new schedule is much better and we plan on sticking with it for a long time. I still teach the same number of classes per week, but there’s also a time slot every day for me to train. I’m so happy!

Since the new schedule started, I’ve been training every day. In retrospect, it was probably a bad idea to train every day because I have finals next week. This week is “dead week” at school, which means teachers are not allowed to test us. The reason behind this is that it allows have time to study for our finals instead of stressing about other tests, but our teachers are still allowed to teach us new material. I think that’s the worst idea in the world. All of my finals are cumulative, so I have to go back and study the old material while learning new stuff. If I were the queen of the world, teachers wouldn’t be able to teach new material during “dead week." They would just help us prepare and review the old material.

But I’m not the queen of the world, so I have to deal with it. I’m not really sure how to start studying for all my tests. My two toughest subjects are on the same day, which really sucks. I’m hoping I can pull myself away from everything long enough to get my work done. I won’t have the distraction of my boyfriend this weekend, which is sad, but it’ll help me focus. He’s going to Florida to train with the Valente brothers and learn how they teach their classes. It’s a great opportunity for him and it’s going to help Scranton MMA a lot with our programs.

I’ve been trying to figure out when my next tournament will be. There are two in February that caught my eye, and that will give me enough time to get my butt back into competition shape. During the winter time I turn into Fat Jess. Basically what happens is I only train a little bit because of school, and I eat whatever I want because I don’t really have to be in tip-top shape. If I’m preparing for a tournament I try to eat a little cleaner and I train a heck of a lot more. Two months will be more than enough time to get back on track and get my mind in the game.

I’m making this entry short and sweet because I have to get back to my studying. Next week I’ll be done with school so my entries will be solely about jiu jitsu! I feel bad giving you guys boring entries about tests and homework, but soon I’ll be able to write about awesome things like training and competing. I hope everyone is having a lovely week full of food, fun, and family. That’s what I would consider a lovely week, anyway. Hasta next week!